Draft Priorities for the Sage-grouse Partnership

From our last meeting, Sue, David and Cliff were tasked with summarizing priorities that we could work on. From the meeting notes on the potential list of actions, we identified the potential priorities for the Sage Grouse Partnership (SGP) to be:

Policy

• Access controls
• Monitor developments and respond to SSRP once released
• Onefour Research Farm (Sue and David developing options)—strong interest in keeping this with a research focus and using tame pasture and formerly cultivated homestead lands as trial area for restoring to native grassland and enhancing silver sagebrush cover

Education

• Support MRWC in development of educational materials ($ or expertise or both)

Research

• No priorities from our end but SGP should ask Government how it can assist with research

On-the-Ground Action

• Access restriction implementation
• Structure removal
• Sustainable grazing management (tweaking grazing management for sage-grouse, including ecological goods and services payments)
• Fence-marking
• Ranch Plans (incorporating sustainable grazing management, fence marking and structure removal)
• Need for an oil and gas work group to monitor oil and gas implementation and develop relationships that could be mutually beneficial
• Predator control will be left with Alberta Government and SGP will ask what, if any, action they can assist with
• West Nile — while this is a priority, there is not much as a SGP that we can do with our resourcing and expertise
• addressing a gap in silver sagebrush seed source; e.g. need for locally collected seed etc. — this is one area that has potential to cooperate with oil and gas on and also to undertake research at Onefour.